Mac Terminal Keyboard Shortcuts Cheatsheet

Use these shortcuts instead of holding Backspace to nuke a wrong command and you’ll move much faster.

Deleting text

Shortcut Action
Delete Previous character (Backspace)
Fn + Delete Next character
Ctrl + W Previous word
Option + D Next word (Terminal settings require “Use Option as Meta key” enabled)
Ctrl + K From cursor to end of line
Ctrl + U From cursor to start of line

Moving the cursor

Shortcut Action
Ctrl + A Start of line
Ctrl + E End of line
Option + Left Arrow Backward one word
Option + Right Arrow Forward one word
Left Arrow Backward one character
Right Arrow Forward one character

Other handy ones

Shortcut Action
Ctrl + L Clear screen
Ctrl + C Cancel current command
Ctrl + T Transpose two characters around cursor
Ctrl + _ Undo last line edit

All in one place

Shortcut Action
Delete Delete previous character
Fn + Delete Delete next character
Ctrl + W Delete previous word
Option + D Delete next word
Ctrl + K Delete from cursor to end of line
Ctrl + U Delete from cursor to start of line
Ctrl + A Move to start of line
Ctrl + E Move to end of line
Option + Left Arrow Move backward one word
Option + Right Arrow Move forward one word
Left Arrow Move backward one character
Right Arrow Move forward one character
Ctrl + L Clear screen
Ctrl + C Cancel current command
Ctrl + T Transpose two characters around cursor
Ctrl + _ Undo last line edit